11 September, 2017
It was clear that Pres. Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and South Korean Pres. Moon were ready to go along with Pres. Trump's proposed coup de main to achieve a sudden breakthrough and resolution with North Korea (a "Nixon to China" moment), but domestic US political pressures appeared to be making it hard for Pres. Trump to be able to engineer the move, given the build-up of demand in the USA for the total removal of all nuclear weapons and ICBMs from North Korea.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Thursday that China would support the United Nations taking further measures against North Korea following its recent test.
"The time for half-measures in the Security Council is over".
China and Russian Federation, which also have denounced the nuclear test, are calling for more dialogue.
It may be hard to tune out the noise along the 250-kilometre border, but for the rest of the world, provocations from North Korea have become impossible to ignore.
"The Russian president repeatedly, including at a press conference in Beijing, said the volume of trade and economic cooperation and the supply of oil and oil products to Korea is at an insignificant level, at a meager level, so in this case, it is hardly reasonable to continue talking about this".
Pyongyang fired an intermediate-range Hwasong-12 over Japan early on Tuesday, which it said was a mere "curtain-raiser" for the North's "resolute countermeasures" against ongoing US-South Korean military drills. This comment was meant to help Putin realize that North Korea's nuclear and missile development is also a crisis close to Russian Federation.
He made the comment on Wednesday at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Russian city of Vladivostok.
"I am convinced that we can avoid a large-scale conflict including weapons of mass destruction in the region and that we can solve this problem through diplomacy".
Moscow exports about 40,000 tons of oil to Pyonyang, a tiny percentage of Russia's overall trade, Putin said, according to Yoon.
Xi told the USA president during their 45-minute call that the North Korean issue must be resolved through "dialogue and consultation". "The other half is dialogue and negotiation", he said.
This comes at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, following the latter's recent missile tests, which Pyongyang called "gift packages" to the United States.
"The situation is very grave. It doesn't seem much time is left before North Korea achieves its complete nuclear armament", CNN quoted the Prime Minister as saying at a meeting of defence officials here.
"President Trump provided his conceptual approval of planned purchases by South Korea of billions of dollars in American military equipment".
Protesters clashed with thousands of police at a South Korean village on Thursday as Seoul deployed the four remaining launchers of the USA anti-missile THAAD system created to protect against mounting threats from North Korea. Also, the final parts of a controversial US-built missile defense system arrived at a base in Seongju, south of Seoul, greeted by throngs of protesters.
Analysts said the two are also concerned the system's advanced radar could be used to look inside their own countries or potentially even limit their deterrent capabilities.
